14

gingerbread and monkey wings

Nix

I swipe at the tears gathering along my lower lashes and murmur, “We’re puzzle pieces . . . and we’re . . .”

“Snapping back together.” Perish completes the thought I can’t even comprehend, his gaze falling to his palm. He’s tracing the line there, and curtains of hair cover his expression. “And since you’re established in Mystiquiel as a necessary part of our world, she’s the one at risk.” His focus flicks up between strands, seeking the enchanted pearls at my neck. “Had things gone as she and I planned, that necklace would have been hers . . . ​her key to eternity. But now it’s yours. Perpetuity, enabled by the eternal sources of every creature here.”

Gaping, I run a fingertip along the warm, pulsing beads—awed by the scope of their power. “This was going to be Lark’s?” At last I understand what Perish meant when he told her she’d be the final Architect.

He looks up then, sweeping white-ombre locks out of his face and looping them in a knot so they hang down between his shoulder blades. “In a perfect world, it would’ve belonged to her. I told her how it would happen—her induction into the timelessness of the eldritch. She insisted that after she received the necklace, she and I would be wed. One monster to another . . . ​ a fairy-tale ending.” His eyes appear to be unfocused, the dual pupils merged momentarily into one, spellbound by the possibilities that might’ve been. In a blink, his pupils separate once more. “But eternity—via the life-force connection—must be gifted freely by the occupants of our world. Because through it, the wearer can communicate with all of us via her mind. When the landscapes she crafted didn’t win Lark the gratitude or loyalty of my subjects, it all fell apart. According to the criterion of the eldritch, she failed. She even believes that herself. Thus, her spirit is superfluous . . . ​incidental . . . inessential—in her own eyes. And therefore, in danger of ceasing to exist altogether.”

Bile rises in my throat. My knees want to give, but the plants forming my clothes won’t allow it. They hold me up—a spindly scarecrow, forced to stand against a tempest. “You mean . . . ​ she’s . . . dying?”

He hides his face behind his palms and growls. “I don’t want it to be so.” His hands drop, revealing the agony crossing his features. “I couldn’t bring myself to look in on her, but my queenly mother has been watching, and she said she’s fading. Since you were ever only one person, there’s only one body between you. And now that both your spirits have recognized the split, I suspect her physicality is being siphoned away through the art you left behind. Every piece that comes to life here, and every part of your creation that blooms there, will use up more of her until there’s nothing left but one body . . . ​one form. The one that’s rooted in Mystiquiel.” His voice breaks, sounding as hopeless as I feel. “Only you will be whole and complete. The individual you would’ve been all along had my father not intervened. Lark will be a segment of that, but how much of her will survive, I’m not sure. Her memories? Her feelings? Or only her essence, just a spark of what she was?”

Expelling a groan that shakes the shrubbery around us, he raises his face so the dripping icicles can christen his lustrous flesh. He scrubs the wetness across his cheeks and his crown’s blinking slows—a dimness that reminds me of watching starlight ripple atop a midnight lake. He’s unnaturally, transcendentally beautiful, even in his sorrow.

“I tried to stop it,” he continues. “By having her cut all ties, close all portals. I was sure that burning those bridges, literally, would also break your physical links. I was mistaken.” He presses his broad back into the tangle of branches behind him—bracing himself against a cushion of venomous thorns and fragrant yellow flowers—and I have no more doubt that in those three years they had together, he came to trust and need her friendship as much as she did his. Just like I need Clarey’s.

I took Lark’s place knowing I might never see him again. It gave me comfort, believing he’d be happier to be reunited with her. But if Lark disappears from the mortal world, Clarey will be left heartbroken and alone again, just like losing his mother and Lark the first time. Except this time, he’ll have lost me, too. I don’t want that for him. I don’t want it for my uncle, either. Or for any of us, least of all my sister—because Lark will always be my twin, no matter what anyone says.

“I used to call her my other half as a figure of speech,” I say aloud, leaving the rest unspoken: How could I have possibly imagined it was literal and true? Now I understand why the only two differences between us physically—her missing widow’s peak and the gap in her teeth—were caused by a scar along the top of her forehead and her thumb-sucking. She was born my mirror reflection, and vice versa, until life got in the way and disrupted that perfectly symmetrical image. “When I thought she’d died, I felt so much shame for wasting the time we had together trying to best her instead of embracing the ways we were different . . . ​ instead of respecting them as something to be nurtured and revered.”

“That inner conflict was inescapable,” Perish says. “On some unconscious level, you sensed those were parts of yourself that you’d lost, and you jealously wanted them back.”

My chest constricts, stifling my breath. At last, a rationale that defines why we were so often at odds, and why that rivalry—what I once believed to be typical of all siblings, the healthy competition they kindle in one another that makes them better—only widened our rift. All those years, we were warring against one another because we craved the characteristics we felt were missing. Because we were both incomplete.

Now the universe intends to fix that, at Lark’s expense.

The anger I’ve been harboring that hardened my heart melts away like the icicles sparkling overhead, leaving me with a profound sense of loss.

“Lark . . .” I lurch forward, breaking free of my vine-and-flower constructs. I crash to my knees. Every nerve implodes on impact, yet no scrapes or blood compounds the pain, since the ivy in my leggings flourishes to form a pillow of leaves over my skin.

Gagging, I angle my head behind a bough of honeysuckle and hack and hack until my stomach empties, ridding me of the nutrients I’d only begun to digest. When it’s over, there’s nothing left but an ache in my lungs, a void in my chest, and the sourness of tragedy on my tongue.

Perish kneels down. I wrinkle my nose at the stench of vomit, embarrassed he’s here to witness my vulnerability.

The foliage senses my needs. My clothing sprouts fresh offshoots that reach into the honeysuckle shrubs surrounding us, shaking the limbs. Every frost-fuzzed blossom trembles loose; the fragrant cascade gathers in a thick carpet atop the residue of my sickness. A crackle of lightning spears from Perish’s crown to the petals and sets them smoldering, a mask of smoky sweetness to overpower the stink.

The kindness of the act, from both him and this world—protecting my dignity when I’m too broken to even feel human—strikes me as if I were the one lit up by strands of magic. My agony deepens, seeing how safe Lark would’ve been in this place. How cherished, happy, and whole she would’ve been.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, more to my sister than to anyone else.

Perish keeps a slight distance between us, only close enough to reach for the beads of pearlized magic at my neck. He halts his finger inches away, unable to bring himself to touch it. “I meant to put a stop to this, by having Lark break the ties between our worlds. I meant for it to sever your spirits from one another once and for all. Give them each a separate plane to inhabit.”

I nod, because I witnessed the two of them orchestrating those plans and hated them both for it. Yet he only wanted to save her from vanishing into the ether of my consciousness.

More hot tears singe my eyes.

If I’d just stayed in Astoria on Halloween . . . ​holed up in my house, hidden away. If I’d never ventured through the veil, we would both be where we were meant to belong. We would be apart, but we’d continue to exist. Yet that’s not exactly true, is it? She couldn’t sustain this world like I could. She wasn’t given the proper talents in the division. She should’ve never been brought here. But since our mom hid us away, a simple case of mistaken identity altered everything.

No wonder such animosity radiated from Lark in my dreams.

“So she knows?” I ask, gulping against the hot rawness in my throat. “She knows everything?”

Perish offers an icicle to soothe me. “No. I told her my father used a spell to bridge you to one another. That we had to close the crossings for the safety of the mortal world, and to relieve her of the burden of being tied to Mystiquiel and me forever through you and the magical bond you two shared. She believes you’re twins still. I couldn’t infer she was incomplete in any way. She already convinced herself she failed here. I feared if her confidence plummeted any further, she’d simply give herself up . . . ​ evanesce.”

Evanesce. A word worthy of a spelling bee. Too mellifluous to mean something so vicious and vile as someone disappearing from your life forever.

Perish tilts his horns. “I’m curious, Architect. How are you feeling? Any different?”

The icicle melts in my mouth, cool and refreshing, as out of place as his question. Still, I consider an answer. In spite of my nausea and heartsickness, I feel stronger, more alive. Everything is more vivid; the colors are brighter, sounds and smells more potent, the essence of everything I’ve given life warmer and more tangible beneath my touch, even under a coating of snow and ice.

He wants to know if I’m stronger, because if I am, it’s proof what the queen said is true: Lark is fading.

“Oh . . . no.” I stifle a dry heave, but there’s nothing left in my stomach to give. I scramble to stand, my weak, shaky legs supported once more by enchanted clothing. Perish follows my lead.

“You can fix this.” I grip his hand. “You have your father’s power through the crown, right? We’ve got to reverse the spell somehow . . . ​we have to bring her back here!”

“That can’t happen.” Perish’s form looms over me—tense and indomitable.

“Why?” I jerk my hand from his when he doesn’t answer. “Oh, of course. You have what you need for your world, and Lark be damned. Is that it? You bastard! How can you just shut your eyes to her fate?” I pound his chest, his muscles hard like rocks beneath my knuckles. “She thought you cared for her. She trusted that! And for what? So you could turn your back on her and leave her there to die alone?”

He catches my waist and spins me so my spine aligns with his sternum, his palm coming up to cover my snarls. “Shush . . . ​ listen.”

I’m preparing to bite him when I notice it, too. The battle between the gingerbread men and the royal knights has ceased. It’s quiet . . . too quiet.

“Do you hear that?” Perish asks. I look at him over my shoulder. His sharp ears perk high as he slowly drops his hand from my mouth.

I strain with my smaller ears, wishing Clarey were here with his BAHA—wishing he were here for so many uncountable reasons. My lovesick longing stops dead when I pick up on other faint sounds in the distance where trees snap and rattle, as if something huge swipes them aside like curtains.

Cautiously, the Goblin King and I step out from our covering and notice our two unicorns prancing in place nervously. Steam billows from their nostrils as they yank their reins against the trunks that anchor them.

The royal knights—unable to defeat the cookie creatures who are now an army of jumbled bits and pieces meshed together with buttercream and steel sutures—sit atop their mounts a few feet away. Both the gingerbread army and the boggles stare upward where a legion of silver-haloed, paper-thin angels, chained together wing by wing, circles in midair. The angels dive toward the patchwork cookies. In a blink, the gingerbread men turn the tables, capturing their attackers, tearing the links and ripping wings off, one by one. Blood-curdling cries shatter the air then dwindle as the tattered remains of the paper angels drift down—strung out in soggy wads that blend against the snowy patches.

I bite back a scream at the brutality as the sugar-and-spice gremlins fasten the wings onto their backs with more icing. The tattered remnants of angels burst like popcorn, spontaneously drying and reshaping, but without their wings they seem unsure what to do. They rip free their paper clip halos to connect their triangular bodies, then wriggle like a captured snake when they’re snatched up by a gingerbread man, flocking with his brothers in the sky on the way to the Goblin King’s tungsten fortress.

With their silhouettes imprinted against the towers looming in the distance, I’m reminded of a scene from The Wizard of Oz, when the flying monkeys circle the witch’s castle. It was always Lark’s favorite part of the movie. Mine was the fairy princess in the glimmering bubble. Or was it the other way around?

We were split down the middle, so is it any wonder so many of our likes and dislikes are black and white, with no gray in between—or that in some instances I can’t even remember which are hers and which are mine?

I jump, startled by a series of harsh cracks fracturing the air. Just a few acres away, in the summer season, the trees collapse, one thudding into the next—a large-scale domino effect. The royal knights, Perish, and I wheel around in synchrony to seek the origin. From the dense canopy of spring, moving branches stretch high above the ice-glazed leaves. Except it’s not branches at all; it’s antlers of shiny steel, five times taller and more circuitous than Perish’s own.

“Krampus,” I murmur in awed terror. My living mural is now complete—ironically, right in time for Christmas Eve. But what does that mean for Lark?

Perish turns his full attention to me. “You should run.”

He shoves me up onto my unicorn and frees the reins. As furious as I am that he’s not willing to bring my sister here to help her, he’s still the only one who can save her. I just need to convince him—and he has to be alive if I’m going to do that.

I frown and grip his forearm, urging him to come with me, but he slaps my mount’s hide an instant before Krampus crashes into our clearing. Like the other mural pieces, his faun-like form looks three-dimensional and lifelike from the front and back but is oddly two-dimensional from the side—flat as a layer of paint flowing on the air. Viewed head on, his fur stands out stiff and unmoving like brushstrokes of brown, and his horns shimmer with a glossy sheen. Standing on his hinds casts him taller and more monstrous than anything I’ve seen in this world so far. His eyes glimmer with coppery shavings that appear red beneath the moon. His gaping maw opens in a roar, revealing six rows of sharklike teeth, and even the sky-high dryads saunter out of the way on all fours like a herd of frightened wildebeests.

The unicorn’s hooves thunder beneath me, sending shudders through my spine. My clothing vines secure me to the saddle, a harness of safety as we gallop out of the way. I cast a glance over my shoulder and see Perish’s royal knights forming a barrier around their king. Emboldened, Perish unsheathes his dagger, the handle twinkling with rainbow light. With a flick of his wrist, the weapon expands into glowing prismatic links, one building upon the other until they’ve formed two giant chains, connected at the center. He casts the manacles toward Krampus. The cuffs clamp around each of the beast’s giant forearms in an effort to bring him down. The moment they touch my living sketch, the glowing links function like real metal chains, clanging loudly and shimmering in the moonlight. The royal knights rush out, weapons held high and at the ready.

Convinced Perish has the upper hand, I’m about to sink into my saddle and make for the castle when I see who’s seated between Krampus’s pointed ears, waving a broken branch while shouting instructions: Scourge. He’s accompanied by his band of henchmen. Each wicked fiend who attended the raucous banquet with him weeks ago rushes out of the scattered snow-clad trees, following in the giant wake of destruction Krampus leaves behind.

Though the rebels wield weapons of their own, they’re far outnumbered and would never be a match for Perish and his knights on a typical day. But with everything I’ve accidentally unleashed through Lark, they could potentially win this coup.

Guilt ravages me, not only for setting Perish’s evil brother loose with my ill-sighted plan, but for giving him the perfect accomplice—a giant unstoppable force. I know my Krampus; he won’t surrender easily, especially with Scourge feeding his chaotic nature.

As if to prove my point, Krampus slings the chains, a sweeping rush from both sides that unseats Perish’s army from their mounts in one fell swoop. Spooked by the commotion, the riderless royal unicorns stampede toward the castle. Wind from their passage rushes through my hair, almost capsizing my tiara. The flowers root deeper in my braid for stability; the wriggling sensation along my scalp gives me goose bumps. My unicorn prances underneath me, as if wanting to catch up with her herd, but I rein her in.

Scourge’s battalion dashes into the clearing and throws an enchanted net across the royal regiment while they’re down. The boggles struggle to get out. On each attempt, the net flickers with zaps of circuitry like a bug light. The underlying buzz emits a haunting susurration: “Spoils for the king . . . ​spoils for the king.”

I realize I’ve seen such a trap before, another net made of biomechanical pack rat faeries—an entanglement woven of their electrified hair. But all of Perish’s subjects have been living outside for weeks . . . ​they’ve resumed their original forms. So how can these still be mutated?

I’m reminded that the pack rat faerie at the banquet complained how some of his siblings had gone missing. Scourge must have had them all along, trapped them somewhere so they wouldn’t be exposed to my settings . . . ​holding them in their biomechanical forms so he could use them for his own despicable ends. And with my environs so broken now, they can’t be healed until I’ve fixed everything again.

The net wriggles and writhes, the teensy faeries obviously reluctant to betray their king but afraid to provoke the prince and his gargantuan accomplice.

A few creatures that didn’t leave with the trolley peer out from behind crumbled trees and smashed bushes, creeping to the king’s aid. Even Angorla tromps onto the scene, wielding gardening shears and a scythe. Each creature in turn gets struck by Krampus’s jangling chains and lands in a busted and bloody heap on the ground before dragging themselves into hiding again.

A low whine scrapes my raw throat. This is what my mistakes have cost the kingdom: the destruction of my orchards, of the creatures I’m supposed to provide for. I won’t let my mistake ruin Perish, too. If Scourge defeats his brother, I’ll never be able to save Lark, and every newborn earth child, including Dahlia and Carl’s, will be at risk.

I growl, tugging on my unicorn’s bridle. The mare swivels at my command, her horn casting garish prisms of light. Every crystalized leaf and jagged icicle reflects the colors, creating a dizzying kaleidoscopic effect. I urge my mount toward the Goblin King, holding her to a cautious gait.

Perish crouches at the edge of his fallen knights and speaks in soothing tones to the hostage pack rat faeries, trying to help them unlock from one another and free his army. Seeing me from the corner of his eye, he motions me to stay back.

“Admit the truth, brother!” Scourge shouts from his soaring perch. “Tell the Architect why you won’t bring her sister here.”

I draw back on the reins, slowing my mount—both embarrassed that Scourge heard me shouting at the king, and curious what his barbed words could mean.

“Get to the castle!” Perish swats frustratingly in my direction.

I refuse to budge.

Scourge laughs. “Seems both girls have minds of their own. How ironic is that?”

At Scourge’s command, Krampus’s gargantuan claw scoops up the live-wire net—filled with the knights—before Perish can manage to liberate the faeries. Krampus straps the wriggling mesh to one of his enormous antlers, leaving the boggles dangling there.

“What he hasn’t admitted to you, Architect”—Scourge continues to taunt, poking the squirming net with his stick—“is that the instant your sister and you come face-to-face, she will be absorbed into you. The eyes are the windows to the human soul, after all. And seeing one another as the mirror images you are will break the magical spell that split you apart. In a blink, the one remaining, you, will be so adept in your completeness . . . ​ your perfection . . . ​you’ll no longer need the king’s aid to create our world’s foundation; you’ll have the ability to alter any settings you wish, to even create new creatures and mutate the ones already here, giving you power over us all.”

I glare at Perish. He returns my gaze, his eyes as gloomy as pools of wine in the haze of our moonlit-midday surroundings. The expression he wears reminds me of when he spoke to Lark in the memory, when he coaxed her to betray me. How he stared at her with desperation and sadness. It’s not the look of a king afraid of losing control over his kingdom . . . ​it’s the look of a man afraid of losing something much more precious.

And in that moment, I understand the depth of his personal sacrifice that day. He gave up his own desire to keep Lark by his side, pushing her to reunite with Clarey, knowing she’d need to have a life with a mortal to continue our bloodline. It’s a token of his devotion as king, freeing Lark so she could start a family among the humans, as it would be the only way to provide the children who would subconsciously feed into my talents and imagination, keeping Mystiquiel evolving and everlasting—never again to be reliant on reluctant stolen mortals.

Yet there’s more to it, something inconceivable for one of his kind . . . ​the real reason he sent her to be with Clarey in spite of how it hurt him, and also why he won’t bring her back today.

“You love her,” I say, simultaneously stunned by the depth of his feelings and horrified at how hopeless Lark’s situation is—that if we come face-to-face, her life would be over in an instant. “You sent her away so she would be safe, so she could have happiness; you were hoping if she found love with Clarey again, she’d remain whole and survive.”

Scourge grunts, answering for his brother. “Yes, his fatal flaw. It’s not that he doesn’t want her to rule him. It’s that he doesn’t want to infringe on her purity . . . ​alter her identity. I could’ve understood a fear that the two of you, once united into one, would overpower us. I could’ve forgiven foresight. But this? Falling prey to love and compassion . . . ​the weakest of all human emotions. And giving her access to affect the parts of this world that he was vowed to protect? A stain on the royal name. There’s a price to be paid.” He cracks the branch in half over a bent knee, then casts the remains to the ground. “And it’s the throne.”

On Scourge’s command, Krampus plucks up the Goblin King. In a blink, Perish’s features shift to something righteous and regal . . . ​fury and power. He homes in on the chains woven through Krampus’s fingers, using his connection to his dagger to recall them. They return to Perish’s hands as if he were magnetized.

Forcing Krampus to break his hold, Perish leaps down, swinging on the links, around and around the creature’s ankles. Krampus totters across the bleak landscape, yet manages to stay balanced, the spikes in his hooves digging into the icy layers for traction. In retaliation, he shakes billows of white from the trees, burying Perish in a mile-high mound of snow.

Desperate to set things right, I leap off the unicorn and spin my vines into corkscrew coils then mentally nudge them to break the soil. They drill to breech the frozen ground, a clawing strain I feel through my spine and musculature. At last, they plunge deep, and I pump the ground with what it needs to amend its frozen stasis: lava—hot and fiery.

The vines swell and glow red, shuttling pulses of magma beneath the surface. Every root and trunk drinks in the heat, causing the snowbanks to melt in torrents. Perish’s white-powder prison sluices away to puddles. Once freed, he shakes off a spray of water, looking both majestic and fierce, like a glistening, golden stag emerging from a lake.

The ice beneath Krampus’s hooves crumples to slush and Perish nods my way, the slightest movement only I catch. I pump more lava, accelerating the melt until nothing remains but sumps of mud. Perish tugs at the chains once more, the tendons in his hands, chest, and neck bulging with the strain. Krampus loses the advantage of traction and slips in the muck with a slurping sound. The resulting giant thud rattles the remaining trees around us. His collision snaps the electrical net apart. Freed at last, the pack rat faeries buzz into the air, seeking refuge in the remaining trees. The royal knights scramble up, intent on capturing Scourge’s rebels. A chaotic chase ensues, with everyone skidding and sliding in the mud.

Perish’s brother—having leapt off and landed on a collapsed tree trunk mere inches from me—wraps an arm around my neck before I can bolt. His stench, a tang of oxidized metal and rot, chokes me, but at the same time spurs an epiphany.

Up close, Scourge looks just as he always has . . . ​scorched wisps of white hair, bent metal shoulder, rusted teeth. He’s still damaged and biomechanical, like the pack rat faeries he held captive, because he was imprisoned by Perish in the castle and never set foot on my healing ground until it was already tainted again.

Which means, most importantly, he still has a metal heart.

“Perish, the dagger! The key!”

Wrestling against the fallen Krampus, the Goblin King transforms his chains back into a dagger, then attempts to shift them further into the one shape that can defeat his brother. The flying gingerbread monkeys intercept, having returned from their trip to the castle armed with axes. They chop at the trees still left standing. Branches fall in a blinding haze, and the fruits burst upon hitting the ground. In place of pulp, lava spatters the surroundings, melting Perish’s dagger and Krampus’s metallic fur, then sparking, igniting the wood and plants with tiny fires. Krampus bellows as his fur singes, and blistered pink skin appears in patches. Perish’s boggles duck to avoid the sprays of scalding liquid and sparks. A handful of Scourge’s cohorts escape and shuttle through mud on their way to Perish. They cover him like insects.

Determined to aid him, I instruct my ivy and flowers to strike at Scourge as if I were a full-body Medusa. He shouts for the flying gingerbread monkeys. They flock around us, chopping my vines with their axes. With each offshoot they amputate, a rip slashes through my heart. I fall to my knees, barely able to see through bleary eyes as Perish’s attackers scramble off.

Krampus rolls over and with a triumphant roar rips the crown from the Goblin King’s head. Perish wails, a howl so guttural and primal it makes the weeping wounds in my flesh pucker like crying mouths. The voltaic puddles left from the melted dagger merge and harden, becoming the familiar weapon, though the handle looks flat and gray like stone, no longer blinking with light.

I slump at Scourge’s feet, staring in disbelief as the Goblin King lies on the ground, a preservation bubble forming spontaneously around him—his last line of defense. But inside, he’s comatose, oblivious as the flames light up around his casing in small outbursts.

“Perish! Wake up!” I lunge for him, but Scourge gouges my shoulder with metal fingers, jerking me back. “It’s not possible.” I whimper. “He told me no one could steal the crown. Not unless every citizen wanted a new king!”

I saw myself how Angorla and the others came to Perish’s defense, even risking their own safety; I know their loyalty remains true.

“Ah, but thanks to you, I found another way to win my rightful place.” Scourge sneers as Krampus rises, holding the lucent crown in his palm and stepping over Perish’s sleeping body, headed in the direction of the castle. “It’s true, no citizen of our land could ever have taken the crown from my brother’s head. Neither could any human. It’s impossible without a magical connection to all the kings before, and the golden circlet is enchanted to kill anyone who tries. But a creature not of earth or fey, made of both flesh and metal, be not held by those boundaries, do they? Thanks to your crafty artwork, the crown’s mine. I can’t wear it yet, but when my brother’s spirit drains away, it will default to me, since I’ll have bested him in a battle of wits. And my first order of business will be to kill you and your sister so you can’t gain the power to be stronger than me. She’ll be easy enough. She’s weak and human, already shrinking away if my mother’s suspicions are true. I’ll simply squash her like the bug she is. And I’m guessing, the moment she dies, you’ll feel it to the core. If your shattered heart isn’t enough to do you in, I’ll have Krampus standing by to finish the job.” Scourge’s gaze falls to my eternity necklace, an obvious insinuation that I won’t be wearing it for long.

“You’ll never get to Lark!” I snarl, struggling against his hold. “You can’t cross the threshold to take her! Only Perish’s blood can unlock it. And he has to give it freely, you ugly pig-faced idiot.”

Scourge barks a cruel laugh and tangles rusted fingernails through my hair, wrenching my head back. “You don’t catch on very fast, do you? Just like Krampus is immune to our laws, so are the other creatures you’ve loosed into our world. When you sent your little tattoo to free me, I told it that to save you, it had to take a portion of blood back to your sister. That you needed her here to help you.” He glances at all the havoc being wreaked around us. “As I don’t see the inky splat hovering about, I assume it went through the veil. Question is, did it have a supply of king’s blood?”

The question strikes me like a slap as I see the vision of my tattoo sipping from Perish like a vampire. Then mercifully, he set it free—the same thing as him giving his blood away. And my last command to Tat: Go back to where you came from.

I meant to reclaim the ink into my flesh . . . ​but instead, I practically reiterated Scourge’s insinuations, sending Tat back to the place where I first drew it on the pages of a notebook, back to my room where it was first conceived.

“What have I done?” I whisper.

His eyes spark with electrical lights that vibrate as the ground shakes from Krampus carrying the crown toward the castle. “Everything I hoped you would. Humans are so pathetically predictable. I don’t have to get to your sister. She’s coming to us. And I’m guessing, as attached as she is to both you and my brother, she’ll cross the veil within the hour.”

I gulp against the knot in my throat. If Lark makes it across the veil, she’s damned. Either by Scourge and his henchmen or by me when we come face-to-face. Struggling for a plan to stop her, I glance at the flames spreading in the orchards. Maybe they’ll grow high enough to hold her back. But that presents its own problems for Perish and Mystiquiel’s populace. When Krampus left for the castle with crown in hand, the fire stretched up around the comatose Goblin King, forming a circle around his bubble—a ring of flames. Last I could see of him, the prongs of his antlers sparkled with dimming lights. For now, there’s enough hierarchy magic left in his veins to render him untouchable, but once that seeps away, he’ll be toast.

Although I can’t see him, I can still try to help him. As I attempt to reach out with my power, my insides shuffle and quake, as if my very bones are turning to ash. I moan. If it hurts this much to be entwined with a burning world to such a small degree, I can only imagine the pain Lark experienced when Mystiquiel rotted as she was spliced with it, acting as a magnifier for Perish’s magic.

Angorla and the others are no longer in sight, but I’m hoping they’re still close, hiding. They once shared their very minds with Lark; my bond with the creatures is nowhere near as strong, but maybe they can at least hear an echo of my thoughts. Perish did mention that through the orbs around my neck I can somehow communicate with them.

Rescue your king . . . take the trolley . . . get everyone to the beach; there’s sand and water to barricade the flames. Hold Lark there. I’ll find a way to get the crown back so Perish can fix this.

Oblivious to me, Scourge glares up at the gingerbread monkeys. “Wait at the veil’s border. When the other girl arrives, bring her straight to me. She needs to be destroyed before she and her sister have a chance to reunite.”

“No!” I strain to propel my vines, but they’re too small and weak—withered buds sprouting from my skin. I don’t know how long it will take to mend, but to give Lark a fighting chance, I have to manage it soon. If I can escape and hole up somewhere, I can concentrate on healing.

I elbow Scourge, nearly knocking him into a tree. He growls and hands me off to his goon companions.

“Take her to the game room. If she’s swinging from the clock’s pendulum, she’ll be too disoriented to recover her Architect powers.”

As Scourge’s conscripts surround me, choking me with the stench of bestial sweat and muddied clothing, I will the anger Lark’s been harboring to burn bitter and bright, in hopes she’ll decide I’m not worth saving.

“Tickety-tock,” Scourge calls out as I’m shoved toward the castle. “Soon I’ll be wearing the crown—and the mortal world will be my playground.”